


Whistleblower

by keerawa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Police, Season/Series 02, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4313964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally's dad was Internal Affairs.  Lestrade was the only DI she'd ever met that didn't hold it against her.  Perhaps he should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whistleblower

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/profile)[watsons_woes](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) JWP 2015 Prompt #10: What’s All This Then? Use the POV of one or more of the police for today's entry. Season 2 spoilers. Unbeta'd.
> 
> Readers who want to know more about the Travers case and Sally's interactions with John can read [The Ghost of Cases Past](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1918701), but this story can easily stand alone.

When Sally's dad first moved to England, he got a job as a bus-driver in London. After the Stephen Lawrence murder, and that sham of a trial, he joined the Met. Sally's mum was worried about his safety, a black, an immigrant, in among all those white police officers.

"How can we expect this country to be a safe place for our little girl if we will not work to make it so," he argued.

Dad was on the vice squad a few years later when he testified against some of his fellow officers for taking bribes. In the wake of the Mcpherson inquiry he was 'rewarded' with a post in IAB.

It seemed like he was on tele every other day, giving interviews and making statements about how the Met was changing for the better. Sally was 18 years old. As part of the most vicious fight she ever had with her dad, she accused him of being nothing but a token. It was the only time she ever saw her father really, truly angry.

"If all I can do, when I go to work each day, is show what the police _should be_ ," he said, "then that is what I will do."

When Sally joined up, he was proud. When finally, after working twice as hard for it, she made detective, he was over the moon. And when Sally was assigned to DI Lestrade's squad, he was relieved.

"I believe Lestrade is a good man, Sally," he told her. "He'll treat you fair."

Lestrade was a good man, and a good cop. She learned a lot from him. There was just one problem – Sherlock Holmes.

It wasn't the drugs. Yeah, that'd been one hell of a first impression, Holmes nearly passing out on the victim during the Travers case, and having to be carted off to A&E. But Sally had known men to lose themselves to drugs and alcohol, get help, and come back strong. She would have been willing to give him another chance.

It wasn't the fact that every time Lestrade involved Holmes in a case, he was putting his own career at risk by breaking a dozen procedures and the chain of evidence. It certainly paid off, at least in the short-term. Their squad's solve rate was the envy of the Met.

It wasn't even his privilege, the public school accent, Holmes insulting them all and treating them like barely adequate servants. Sally had seen three separate drugs charges disappear the moment they were entered into the computer system, and could only imagine the corruption and back-door deals, the secret abuse of power that demonstrated.

She could have overlooked all that, because Holmes was clever, so fucking clever, and God knows they needed all the help they could get, if only Sherlock Holmes was there to help.

But he wasn't, was he? Holmes didn't care about the victims at all. The crimes were just puzzles, ways to pass the time. He would look at the corpse of a young woman brutally raped and murdered, and light up like it was Christmas. He loved it; got off on the violence and the death like a crow feasting after a massacre.

And in a man who could, quite possibly literally get away with murder, that was a terrifying thing.

Sally talked it over with her dad. Her father was a great believer in following the spirit of the law over the letter. He suggested that, since Holmes seemed to be doing more good than harm, she let things lie for now, documenting anything problematic.

"If you find evidence of true wrong-doing, Sally, do not keep silent," he said solemnly, "but you must act quickly. You bring it to Lestrade and to the superintendent. Tell anyone who will listen. The more people who know, the safer it will be for you."

So Sally kept her eyes and ears open. She tried to warn off Doctor Watson, not that he listened. And when she heard that little girl scream, terrified at the very sight of Holmes – she acted.

**Author's Note:**

> [Stephen Lawrence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence) was a black British man killed in London, in 1993, in a racially-motivated attack as he was waiting for a bus. The case was dismissed for lack of evidence. The [Mcpherson inquiry](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/feb/24/lawrence.ukcrime12) was a public inquiry into Lawrence's murder and the handling of the trial. It was conducted from 1997-1999, determined that institutionalized racism was a serious problem within the Metropolitan police, and made 70 proposals on how to change the system. I believe these two events would be pivotal to Sally Donovan's understanding of the Met and her place in it, with or without her father's influence.


End file.
